A Study on the Trend of Physical-Spatial Formation of Hatra

Ancient Iran has been a vast region which its political boundaries have altered over time with the emergence of various governmental periods and as a result of the withdrawal of these borders, part of its legacy has been left in distant lands. The desert city of Hatra, which the peak of its significance returns to the Parthian period, is one of these Iranian heritages which nowadays is located outside of modern Iranian borders, in Iraq, and is the richest archaeological area known in the Persian Empire with great potential better understanding this unknown empire. Hatra is a city with almost three centuries of dynamic urban life which grew and expanded rapidly because of its appropriate natural-environmental, communicational-commercial and strategic position and especially the religious beliefs of its inhabitants. In ancient era, this city as the capital of Arabic territories was located 50 km northwest of the ancient Assyrian capital. Its natural borders were from the East Tigris River, Euphrates at the West, Sinjar Mountains in north-with the area of influence of Khabur and Nusabin-and Mada’in in the south.The primary core of the city which was probably Assyrian, formed due to appropriate geographical conditions of the site, and later, with the construction of the temples became a center for social gatherings. The city flourished in the Seleucid period by the expansion of trade routes and unfolding its military importance against the Roman Empire during the Parthian, was converted into a major city of the West of Parthian territory. Construction of ditch and city walls were began in this period, thereby; the city was preserved from incidents of the era for a long time and reached its peak of glory. During this period, Hatra was relatively independent from Parthians though allied with Parthians at the time of the Roman military attacks, but soon with emergence of Sassanian in the mid third century AD, the golden era of Hatra ended and its civilization subsided. After the recognition of ancient area of Hatra, lots of studies were done. These studies mainly were the result of excavation by European-Iraqi joint researchers led to the introduction of a variety of assumptions about the nature of this historical city; Assumptions which know Hatra as a Seleucid city and influenced by the Hellenistic-Roman culture, such as “ Dura-europos “ or affected by Parthian cities. In this research, with a comparative study on Hatra’s urbanism and other historical patterns, its evolution will be analyzed as part of the history of Iranian urbanism; while some researchers using archaeological excavation data believe that the settlement and civilization in this area have been started from Assyrian era, there is no documented research on the history of Hatra’s urbanism. Present research with the implementation and analysis of existing data, will analyze the physical spatial structure of Hatra as a limited example of the Parthian urbanism.There were several effective factors on t forming the physical-spatial structure of the City from genesis to collapse which Natural-environmental, religious-ritual, communicational-commercial, military and governmental were the most important ones. In addition to these factors, the culture had an important role in shaping the City. In this paper, with an interpretive- historic method and utilizing a logical argument, the following questions will be answered: How has the spatial- physical structure of Hatra, followed the various elements such as: religious, commercial, cultural factors, etc.? And what changes have the urban elements of Hatra had over the time? In order to understand the evolution of Hatra, as the first step, each of the above factors, will be investigated separately in different periods and the influence of these factors on the structure of the city will be studied; as the next step with a more holistic approach, obtained findings will be discussed.